


Steel Safe Hands

by apartment



Series: Below the Wrist [1]
Category: X-Men (Alternate Timeline Movies), X-Men (Movieverse), X-Men - All Media Types, X-Men: Apocalypse (2016) - Fandom, X-Men: Days of Future Past, X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: (But not much!), Erik Has Feelings, Erik has never learned how to let go, Erik spends the ten year time skip running away and then helping mutants, Established Relationship, F/M, Fix-It, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Including with Charles, M/M, Nina is not actually Erik's kid, Protective Erik, That's what he meant by 'trying Charles' way'
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-02
Updated: 2016-06-02
Packaged: 2018-07-11 13:42:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,091
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7054126
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/apartment/pseuds/apartment
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Never letting go has always been Erik's forte. During his ten years in Europe, Erik learns that this can be applied to more than just his contempt for hateful humans and his goal-driven determination. Never letting go sometimes means family, too.</p><blockquote>
  <p>“Goodbye, Professor,” Erik says, turning towards the house. </p>
  <p>Along with the press of acknowledgement, Erik feels a small surge of amusement. “The beard suits you, by the way. I quite like it.” </p>
  <p>Charles pulls out of his mind then, and Erik takes a moment to spread his senses wide, taking in the metal structure of the house, pots and pans, Magda’s knitting needles, Nina's bedframe. It feels like home now, but the thought doesn’t strike Erik with panic anymore. </p>
</blockquote>
            </blockquote>





	Steel Safe Hands

**Author's Note:**

> Despite the time skips not making much sense considering 10 years is a lot longer than the movie would imply, this is basically 5k words of Erik's European Exile™, where he travels the continent and finds himself.

When the adrenaline finally wears off, Erik realizes he is trembling. In the quiet, discrete alleyway he has found himself in, he discards his armor with shaking hands. His arms ache, his shoulders especially, and he almost doesn’t have the energy to reach for his helmet. But it, too, he lifts from his head. Charles will not come after him, he knows. There is no reason to want to keep it any more. When he allows himself to collapse against the rough brick exterior of a building, Erik hopes the shadows are enough to keep him out of sight. It is much too bright, and patches of sun glisten off the pieces of his metal armor. Erik does not cry as he looks at them, but he sits very still and very silent for a very long time.

The sun has set before Erik makes his move again. He throws a musty, trashed cardboard box over his armor, hoping to put off its discovery for at least a few hours, and flies himself onto a nearby roof. His boots are heavy and loud, still lined in metal, so he hovers himself a few inches in the air and looks around. He’s not too far from a crowded street on his right, so Erik turns left and uses the shadows to hide himself. Wearing only the black clothing from under his armor, Erik melds into the darkness, back into his element. It’s dangerously easy to fall back into who he was Before Charles, and Erik steals away into the night.

The government probably already has Washington National Airport under heavy surveillance, so there’s no way he’s going to get out of the country through D.C. Unfortunately for them, Erik is intimately familiar with the process of fake passports and IDs. The bar serving as a front for the mutant underground network isn’t familiar to Erik, but Charles had mentioned finding the unusually dense gathering back when they were recruiting mutants. From the rooftop, Erik spots the entrance easily: a bright sign flickers every so often, blinking a neon name and glass of full beer at him. There are some people loitering outside, smoking or chatting, but a few are dressed heavily, in excessively baggy clothing—a dead giveaway of something hidden underneath, and Erik knows he’s in the right place.

He retreats, drops down a block away, and makes his way towards the bar, trying to look as unassuming as possible: shoulders relaxed, face forward, easy stride. Yet all the mutants are staring at him, and it’s only when Erik is halfway to the entrance that he realizes the problem. Every single mutant with access to a television was watching the Sentinel unveiling this morning, he realizes. They all saw what he did, and Erik can’t be sure that even these mutants of questionable company can be trusted with his location. He turns before reaching the bar entrance and slips into the alley. The human black market will have to do, but Erik will have to be very careful to find somewhere or someone uninterested in politics. He decides to head North, betting that suspicious attitudes in the South outweigh the notion of Southern hospitality.

Erik’s lucky break finally comes by the hands of an old woman who forges passports out of her convenience store in Chicago. She’s half blind and lives with her service dog, Juleta. They are both from Poland, so when Erik crosses the border to Canada and chooses a destination at the Fort William Municipal Airport, that is where he goes.

Being back in Europe is painful and nostalgic. Poland is pleasant, and he finds good work in a mine, careful not to use his power, but he keeps to himself, an ear out for gossip just to hear of potential danger. It’s lonely but calm, and Erik uses the time to adjust himself to his life on the run. This country, however, reminds him too closely of Auschwitz, of harder times and grief that has never really left, so two years into his exile, with the scar on his neck dulling from raw pink, Erik packs up and travels South to Czechoslovakia.

The people are pleasant there, and Erik especially likes Dominik, the man at the bakery, who understands him well enough when Erik speaks Polish. Erik goes by Maksymilian now, and he buys a loaf of bread and two rolls every other morning. After half a year, it becomes dangerously like routine, and Erik has never waited for trouble to come to him before acting. The day before he leaves, Erik pays Dominik for three loafs instead of one, and packs them for the road.

It takes Erik a week to make his way to Hungary, and he settles outside Budapest, in a shoddy ramshackle place close to the smithy where he works. Hungary drains him at first, where no one seems to understand Slavic or Germanic languages, and simply look at him when he introduces himself as Filip Kohák. He hasn’t trusted anyone in a long time, but even only slightly acquainted company is better than none, Erik finds. He misses feeling metal bend under his fingers, and slowly becomes subtle enough with it that he is able to enhance his work without anyone noticing. Erik gains a reputation in the city for his nimble handiwork and repairs, and soon the name Filip Kohák attracts too much attention. Still, Erik is so tired of running. There is only so long one man can look over his shoulder before he breaks his neck.

He puts off leaving Budapest for as long as he can, unsure of his next destination. The Soviets view him as a threat as an American operative, and while West Europe is in shambles, many countries still too closely allied to the United States to be safe. Still, Erik knows he has become complacent, and is halfway to packing when his mind is made up for him during a weekly grocery trip.

“Ya, Filip!” someone hails him, and Erik recognizes an old man whose pocket-watch chain he fixed a week or so ago. “I hope you’re having a nice week,” the man says. “I recommended you to a coworker of mine. He should be stopping by tomorrow evening!”

 _A coworker?_ Erik thinks, and feels bile and panic rise in his throat. That man could be anyone. _Was he hunting for Erik? Had Erik slipped up?_ His hand forced, Erik sighs slightly before painting a rueful smile on his lips. “Sorry, sir,” he says. “I’m leaving tomorrow. Ma’s sick back home.”

Sympathy and pity flash across the man’s face, and his grin folds downwards. “Sorry to hear that, son,” he says. “You give your regards to her from a pleased customer, you hear me?” He smiles softly and bids Erik a good day and journey, and Erik returns the sentiment before leaving.

With a little more weight to his name now than back in Poland, Erik takes until evening to pack, and when he heads out, the back streets he takes are lit only by moonlight. Still, it’s easy for him. Erik reaches out and can feel the metal in buildings humming around him, so navigating isn’t a problem. It’s this vigilance that saves him, Erik thinks later, after the knife quickly but silently approaching him from behind has been melted into a puddle on the ground. The would-be mugger stops in surprise, and Erik holds his gun to her face, pointing it between wide eyes.

The girl is short, face covered by a hood. Her hands rise from her sides, open and baring no weapons, but Erik knows she realizes that he’s a mutant, what he’s capable of. He clicks the safety off, but before he can pull the trigger, a vine sprouts from the ground and wraps around his hand. Erik freezes. He could still pull the trigger if he’d like—metallokinesis has many advantages—but he can’t shoot her now. She’s a mutant.

“You’re a mutant,” he states, and watches when she nods, still staring rather cross-eyed at the gun pointed at her brow. Erik lowers it to his side, and the girl drops her hands to hers. “Why did you attack me with a knife?”

The girl stares at him for a few moments before removing her hood. She is very young, too young to be on the streets alone. “I needed the money,” she says. Erik notices then that she’s forming a making a slow gesture with her hand.

“Don’t,” Erik says, nodding to it. The girl closes her fist, startled. “I can still shoot you.” He floats the gun out of his grasp, removing it from the vine trap. “Don’t try to attack me, and tell me who you are.”

“I’m no one,” the girl tries, and Erik shakes his head. “I’m just a mutant,” and again Erik tells her to be specific. “I’m Klara,” she eventually whispers, like she’s ashamed of allowing him to know her.

She can’t be more than fourteen, and what should be young and bright is streaked with dirt and desperation. Erik looks at her and sees the kids at Charles’ mansion, embroiled in conflict just for being themselves. He wants to kill the person who left her on the streets like this.

“Do you have family here?” he asks, wary still but not wanting to kill her. When she shakes her head, Erik frowns. “Do you have anything here?”

Klara shakes her head. “I’m running away,” she says, and _oh_ , Erik can only see himself at her age, running from a life that seemed too cruel too young.

“Where are you going?” he asks.

Klara looks uncertain for a moment before answering, almost as a question, “Away from Switzerland?”

“Would you like to come with me?” Erik says. “I will keep you safe for a little bit, give you food and money.”

The fear that flashes across Klara’s face sends Erik’s stomach plummeting. “Will you…,” she hesitates, starting over in a whisper, “Will you…. want me to do things… for you?”

“What?” Erik’s eyes are wide, his brain shocking itself to a shrieking halt. “What? No, Klara, no. No, you don’t need to do anything for me, nothing like that.” He hopes he is assuming incorrectly, but knows he is not: there’s a look on her face he recognizes from people he once knew in his past.

Klara looks up at him and it feels like she is looking right through him. There is so much pain in her expression, and when she smiles Erik feels like crying. “Okay,” she says, “But I can fight, and I’ll fight you if I need to.”

Erik nods and turns. “Come on, then,” he says. “I was thinking of going to Poland. Is that okay with you?” Choice, it feels, is immensely important when he talks to her. Erik vows to never force anything on her. He will not be a man giving orders.

“That works for me,” Klara smiles. She begins walking next to him, and Erik slows his steps to accommodate her shorter stride. “But do you know how to get to New York?”

Erik is struck with the urge to ask why America, but refrains. He has a pretty strong inkling of why Klara wants to go to New York, and someone like her—controlling plants, it looks like—would fit in at Charles’. _Maybe he could even visit her_ , and Erik hates himself for even entertaining such a thought.

“I can get you to New York from Poland,” he says. He’ll have to make a stop by Caliban’s to get her a passport. “But first, would you like some food?” Erik doesn’t have much, but what he does will be Klara’s for about the next month.

It takes slightly longer than a month to reach Poland, Erik’s normal pace considerably slowed by Klara’s, but he doesn’t mind in the slightest. Other than a little more paranoia, they do not encounter many problems on the road. Caliban doesn't ask more questions than necessary once fixed with a steady glare, and Klara is more than suitable company after four years of loneliness. While he never tells her his real name, she is still someone he knows will not turn him in. At the airport in Warsaw, he buys her a ticket and gives her food for a week.

At her gate, Klara turns to him with bright eyes. “Thank you, Mr. Filip, for helping me.”

“Be safe,” he says, and she nods. “When you get to New York, Xavier’s School for Gifted Youngsters is in Westchester County.”

Klara’s eyebrows shoot up. “How did…,”

“—I know?” Erik finishes for her. He smiles almost sadly. “There is one reason mutants go to New York from across the ocean, Klara. It’s always for Charles.”

“You know him,” Klara says, not entirely as a question.

Erik nods. “Tell him you were with me when you meet him.” Charles will find out about the past month easily whether or not Klara says, but knowing Charles, he’ll think Erik is hiding something if he doesn’t request that Klara be honest, and then he’ll have Charles contacting him with Cerebro, and _no_ , he does not want that, _thank you very much_.

“I will,” she says. When Klara’s flight number is called, she looks at the passengers lining up and then back at Erik. “Thank you again.”

Before Erik can react, Klara springs forward and wraps him a quick one-second hug. Erik blinks in surprise, and then watches as Klara waves and walks away. He’s pretty sure that’s the first time he’s seen her volunteer physical touch with anyone.

He watches her in line, and Klara looks over her shoulder at him one more time before disappearing out of sight. Erik waits until he feels the metal plane take off safely before he turns to leave.

A year after Klara departs, Erik has found a job in a mine, similar to the last time he was in Poland. He goes by the name Henryk Gorzky now, and makes small talk with some workers to keep himself out of suspicion. He rents a room from an old couple who doesn’t bother asking questions, and lives comfortably on what money he makes. It is better than last time.

He goes hunting sometimes, the elk providing a kosher meal when the pork cuts from the butcher are not. Erik is resting against a tree, the sun barely making it to the forest floor when he feels a familiar presence in the back of his mind. It’s warm and pleased, and Erik closes his eyes and sighs.

“Hello, Charles,” he says drily.

“Erik,” Charles replies. “Hello, old friend. Thought I’d, well, check in.”

Erik chuckles despite himself. “Then I’m to assume there’s no other reason for your call?”

“Well, I can’t exactly say that.” He pauses. Erik feels the pleased hum of Charles’ presence pick up again. “You sent a mutant to me.” He sounds unbelievably touched.

“She wouldn’t have made a very good fighter.”

“And she was so young.” And there Charles is again, picking out the pieces of Erik that he doesn’t even like to admit exist. “We’re taking good care of her here. She’s happy, made friends.”

“That’s good,” Erik says, knowing that Charles has picked up on exactly how grateful he is through their connection.

They fall silent for a little, and Erik basks in the feeling of Charles’ warm mind in his. He really will never get tired of that feeling. At his thought, Charles’ side of the connection flares up in a little embarrassment, a little fondness, and a lot of happiness. Erik rolls his eyes.

Soon, he feels a spike of determination from Charles, and knows what’s coming before he even hears the words. “Will you be coming back any time?”

“You know I can’t.” He grimaces slightly.

“I know,” Charles sighs. Over the connection, it feels like a decrease in water pressure. “But I’d still… if you do come back to America, I would like if you did. Just for a visit.”

“If I come back,” he says. “I will try.” It’s as good of a promise as Charles is going to get, and satisfaction glows from his end. Erik briefly wonders what emotions he’s transmitting himself.

Charles picks up talking about the mansion, about how he’s trying to get it legally changed to a boarding school. “I want it to be a place for both mutants and humans one day,” he says. Erik snorts, and Charles ignores him. “The kids are happy here. I can protect them here.”

“And when,” Erik asks. “Will they learn to protect themselves?”

“They don’t need—,” Charles cuts off and huffs. “They will, alright? But when they’re older, if they need to. Give the world time.”

“The world has had time,” Erik sighs. He wants to get away from this conversation. Not now, not after all these years. “Tell me about the kids.”

As Charles begins talking about Hank, Jubilee, and an incredibly powerful psychic named Jean, Erik allows himself to be lulled into a small sphere of security. The woods are bereft of metal, and coupled with Charles in his mind, Erik feels incredibly centered within himself. He listens to the pleasant hum of Charles’ words and mind, smiling at the deeper tone of Charles’ mind-voice compared to his physical one.

A spike of surprise abruptly cuts off the steadiness, and Erik blinks into full awareness the moment Charles says, “Erik, you’re not alone!”

Erik springs to his feet, reaching out with his senses, but he cannot feel any unfamiliar metal. “Where?” he asks, pulling a knife from its strap.

“No, no, wait!” Charles calls, more calmly than before. “No, she’s a child.” Fascination sparks in Charles’ mind, and it feels like glittering. “Oh, Erik, she’s a mutant.”

Erik lowers the knife to his side. “Where is she?”

“On your left, over there.” Charles sends Erik an image of what he sees in Cerebro, and Erik slowly moves towards the hiding place of the girl, giving the tree she’s next to a wide berth so he doesn’t appear behind her.

“Hello,” he says uncertainly when he sees her. She’s young, just around five, and she’s holding a rabbit in her lap. The image is so surprising Erik forgets what he was saying for a second. “Hello. I’m Henryk.” He crouches down a few feet away from her. “Are you lost?”

“Hello,” she says, slowly, looking like a deer in headlights. Then she shakes her head and says, “No, not lost.”

Erik is trying to figure out a way to ask why she looks terrified when Charles interrupts. “She’s scared of you,” he hears in his mind. “Thinks you’re going to turn her in.”

Erik steels himself. He wonders if she’s dangerous, as he can’t really pinpoint her mutation. “I’m not going to hurt you. Can I know your name?”

She looks at him in suspicion. “Mama says not to tell people my name if I’m out in the forest.”

Erik regards her, and feels Charles’ reassuring pressure enveloping his thoughts. _Her name is Nina_ , Charles tells him, but it’s still important to ask. “Is it because you’re different?” he asks gently. “Don’t worry, I won’t tell. I’m different too.” He pulls out a small clip of metal from his bag and floats it over to her.

“Oh!” Nina looks up, surprised, and smiles toothily. Charles sends over a flash of approval, and Erik is pleased. “You’re like me.” She holds up the rabbit in her hand, and it does nothing but twitch its nose.

“That’s a wonderful gift you have,” Erik says, because it feels like the right thing to say. It actually just feels like something Charles would say, and Erik feels brief amusement from him. “Do you spend a lot of time with the animals in the forest?”

She nods. “Mama says not to talk to my friends when other people are around. But you’re nice.” Nina grins, then says, gesturing at the rabbit, “Mira says so, too!”

Erik smiles. “That’s a nice name. May I know yours?”

Nina nods and her eyes crinkle. “I’m Nina. This is Mira. And that,” she points into the distance, where an elk stands watching them—Erik hadn’t even noticed it before. “Is Marcin.”

“It’s nice to meet you all,” Erik says, and stands. “It’s getting to be dinner time, though. When do you need to go back? I can walk you.”

“I will go with you!” she declares. “You can meet Mama!”

Erik is about to refuse when he feels a gentle nudging from Charles. _Go_ , it says, _you can help._ So Erik goes.

Nina chatters and waves at some animals they cross on the well-trodden path to her house, and when they reach her house, he lingers behind. “Tell your mother I’m here,” he says. Nina nods and goes inside. Within a minute, a woman pushes through the door, holding a medium-sized kitchen knife in hand.

“Who are you?” she asks.

Erik swallows thickly, settling his nerves. He doesn’t know if this lady is a mutant or not. _No_ , Charles helpfully supplies. Erik sometimes wishes he were a telepath. This woman could easily turn him into the police, and he’s simply betting on the fact that she wants to keep her daughter out of their sight.

“My name is Henryk,” he says. “Your daughter is a mutant.”

“What do you want?” Nina’s mother takes a step forward, raising the knife a few inches.

“So am I,” he says, and watches as Nina’s mother realizes what he’s saying. She loosens her grip on the knife, but does not lower it.

“Show me,” she demands, so Erik does.

“I know you,” she whispers when his demonstration is done. “You are Magneto.”

A few years back, Erik probably would have killed the mother, taken Nina, and run. Now, with Charles soothing the frayed edges of his panic, Erik remains calm. A single mother raising a mutant can no doubt use help with what she doesn’t understand. “I am Erik. Your daughter needs a mutant to teach her,” he says, and leaves it at that. He does not offer more, and he does not run.

“I will kill you if you teach her to do wrong.” She turns and heads into the house. Erik follows, and sees Nina at the dinner table inside. There is bread next to a pot of stew on the stove. “I am Magda,” Nina’s mother says, using her knife to slice the loaf. “Join us for dinner tonight.”

In the evening, Erik bids them both goodbye and returns to his house. Charles left his head halfway through dinner, and Erik very softly misses him. He’s now glad, though, that Charles isn’t in his head to feel that sentiment.

Over the next few months, Erik goes over for dinner once every week, then twice, then more. Magda and Nina become a fixture in his life, and he enjoys watching Nina grow. Erik doesn't hunt anymore, scared of killing a friend of Nina's, but his meals are taken care of by Magda's generosity. He teaches Nina that mutation is like any other muscle in the body, and must be exercised carefully, and laughs when she teaches a rabbit to shake hands. The animals seem to like him, too, and he thinks Nina’s probably asked them to.

Half a year into his mentorship, Magda and he begin sitting down with each other after Nina’s gone to sleep, talking about their lives. He tells her about Auschwitz one day, but not about his mother. That is a hard night, and by its end, he has had more than one glass of wine. When he stands to leave, Magda gives him a hug.

Another night, he asks about Nina’s father, but Magda gives him a wry smile and replies that he left when a hawk broke a window during one of Nina’s toddler tantrums. Erik doesn’t ask again. Magda tells him about her knitting, about her parents, and about wanting to plant roses in the backyard. Erik finds out she likes grapes and carrot stew, and when he mentions that he misses sauerkraut, she serves it with rye bread the next day. He tells Magda that the sands in Cuba are divine, untouched and smooth, but avoids the reason he was there, the image of Charles falling, staring into blue eyes filled with pain and disappointment. He doesn’t tell her about hunting Nazis, but when he whittles to stay in practice with the more delicate uses of his mutation, Magda wears a soft smile when he presents wooden animals to Nina.

Three days after Nina’s seventh birthday, after two years spent in Poland, Charles reappears in Erik’s mind, so he excuses himself to outside after dinner. “Charles, it’s been awhile.”

“It has, indeed. I see you’re still with Nina.”

“She needs someone to help her accept her mutation, no matter what others say,” Erik replies. “And Magda, too, is very kind.”

“More than kind, my friend,” he says, dropping his voice a little. He doesn’t feel hurt through their connection, but Erik has to wonder. “You love her.”

“I think I do,” Erik agrees, startling himself with how easily he can admit it. “Do you want… an apology?”

“No,” Charles answers easily. “No, I have had others as well.”

“I know.” Erik breathes out slowly. “Am I supposed to consider this your blessing, then?”

“Your accent, Erik, is now rather Polish. I just want you to consider what that means for you.”

It has now been awhile in one place, and both Charles and Erik know it. “I’m not leaving them,” he snarls, defensive.

“No, you’re not,” Charles agrees, dissipating Erik’s irritation. “And I wouldn’t encourage you do so, considering I rather like your lifestyle right now.”

“What do you want me to do then?”

“I simply believe that sometimes in a life such as ours, it is important to cling to what you love, and never let it go.”

“I know all about never letting go, Charles.”

“Oh, I know, my dear one,” Charles laughs. “So what will you do about it?”

Erik clenches a fist. “I’ll never leave them.”

“Good.” Erik feels the back of his mind glowing. “Now go back inside. She’s wondering where you are.”

“Goodbye, Professor,” Erik says, turning towards the house.

Along with the press of acknowledgment, Erik feels a small surge of amusement. “The beard suits you, by the way. I quite like it.”

Charles pulls out of his mind then, and Erik takes a moment to spread his senses wide, taking in the structure of the house, pots and pans, Magda’s knitting needles, Nina’s bedframe. It feels like home now, but the thought doesn’t strike Erik with panic anymore.

Magda is curled up reading in an armchair when he returns, and she smiles softly. “Any trouble?” she asks, and he shakes his head.

He grabs the novel he’s reading, Orwell’s  _1984_ , and reads the last few chapters distractedly, unable to think about anything other than his conversation with Charles. He sneaks a look up at Magda, beautiful with her dark blue dress and the way she tucks her hair behind her ears with her pinky.

 _Never let go_ , Charles had told him, so when he makes to stand and she rises to see him to the door, Erik lingers and faces her.

“Magda,” he says, wondering how someone can burn so brightly. When he reaches a hand up and hovers over her cheek, Erik notices that he’s trembling. Suddenly his hand seems too rough, too calloused to touch her skin. “I—I really…,”

Something terrible crawls out of Erik’s past and sits on his shoulder, whispering in his ear that he’s going to get them killed. It claws at his chest, uncertainty and fear wrapping around the words he wants to say. But Magda stands in front of him, and Charles stands behind, and there is an equally strong part of Erik screaming to _protect_.

Magda steps forward and places her hand on his cheek, an easy movement that seemed so difficult just a second ago. “Is this what you want?” she asks, and he barely whispers _Yes_ before they lean in.

The next day after work, Erik buys two gold rings and reshapes them to fit his and Magda’s ring fingers, respectively. He waits another seven months before asking her to marry him, and when he does, it is with full permission from an enthusiastic Nina. Magda says yes even when he explains to her who Charles is, and what he means to Erik. She is so lovely and understanding, and he did not realize a human was capable of this. For the first time, Erik understands what Charles is always preaching: the world will understand mutants one day, will one day accept them and allow them to live and love. It must.

He and Magda have a small wedding as Henryk and Magda Gorzky, and accept the small gifts from the townsfolk with cheer. Back home, Nina tells her animal friends that she has a father now, that his name is Mr. Lehnsherr but that she calls him Papa. He gives Nina a metal locket one evening and tells her he’ll never leave her, that she is his family. It feels like a promise to everyone: his mother, Charles, and now Nina.

Charles drops into Erik’s mind a few months after and congratulates Erik when he finds out the wedding has already taken place. He updates Erik on Klara and tells him to bring Magda and Nina if he ever comes to visit. Erik doesn’t immediately shut down the idea, and Charles’ presence feels like it’s soaring.

Of course, Erik is still scared. He doesn’t think he will ever get away from the nightmares or waking up in the middle of the night, dreading that one day he will lose his new family too. But Magda is there every night as their years together begin, stretching a hand out to press against his chest, bringing him back to bed, to warmth. Some nights, he checks on Nina and finds her asleep and peaceful.

Metal is always thrumming around him, a reassuring presence that connects them all, links them to this home. Magda’s ring and Nina’s locket become objects he routinely skims the state of. When he looks at them, Erik _feels_ , and the metal grows louder, roaring, _protect them, protect them, protect them._

**Author's Note:**

> As you can probably see, this is my fix-it for the shoddy writing Erik was given (once again) in X-Men: Apocalypse. In a perfect fix-it, Erik wouldn’t have had a plot device family at all, and he would have been his normal radicalized self willing to go along with Apocalypse for the sake of the strong mutantkind.
> 
> I hated that Erik decided to trust a human woman with his secret and have a child with her when he’s supposedly plagued by nightmares about his loved ones being taken from him. So here you go, Nina is not Erik’s child but he does fall in love with Magda after spending time with her watching over Nina since she’s a mutant. Also, he and Charles aren’t together but they’re most certainly #HellaGay. This, I can accept. 
> 
> Klara Prast is a relatively new Swiss mutant from the Runaways issues who can speak to and grow plants. I’ve changed her story a little here, but in the comics, she’s sold into marriage at age 12 to a man who sexually assaults her and brings her to New York. Since I hate when creators decide to give peaceful flower children tragic sexual backstories, I got her out of her marriage. 
> 
> Also, Erik’s birth name in canon is Max, so I had a little fun with one of his aliases
> 
> The next chapter/installment will have the events of the actual movie from Erik’s perspective, and I’m going to try to justify his nonsense as much as possible! It’ll be up in a week! 
> 
> HMU on [tumblr](http://apartmented.tumblr.com/) PLEASE I WANT FANDOM FRIENDS (and ask me for my twitter if you’d like)


End file.
